Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Contingencies Fund Advance – Vaccines Programme

Alok Sharma: I hereby give notice of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s intention to seek an advance from the contingencies fund totalling £3,360,000 to enable expenditure on Covid-19 vaccines programme to be spent ahead of the passage of the Supply and Appropriation Act. The funding is urgently required for HM Government to secure manufacturing capability for a possible antibody treatment.Parliamentary approval for additional resources of £3,360,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a Main Estimate for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £3,360,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.The cash advances will be repaid upon receiving Royal Assent on the Supply and Appropriation Bill.


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Use of the Industrial Development Act 1982 for Coronavirus-related assistance

Alok Sharma: I am tabling this statement for the benefit of Honourable and Right Honourable Members to bring to their attention spend under the Industrial Development Act 1982. In addition to the obligation to report on spend under the Industrial Development Act annually, the Coronavirus Act 2020 created a new quarterly reporting requirement for spend which has been designated as addressing the effects of coronavirus. This statement is intended to fulfil that purpose. This report reflects quarter 1 of 2020, covering the period from the introduction of the Coronavirus Act 2020 on 25 March 2020 to 31 March 2020. Spend under the Coronavirus Act 2020 Under the Coronavirus Act 2020, there is a requirement to lay before Parliament details of the amount of Coronavirus related designated assistance provided in each relevant quarter. In the period to 31 March 2020 (from the Act’s introduction on 25 March 2020 to 31 March 2020) 983 loans worth £90.5 million were committed for COVID related purposes by lenders accredited to deliver the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme. Under this scheme, BEIS through the British Business Bank provides an 80% guarantee. The contingent liability incurred was therefore £72.4 million. The actual expenditure to 31 March 2020 was zero. Actual expenditure of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 25 March 2020 to 31 March 2020£0All expenditure of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 25 March 2020 to 31 March 2020£0 Contingent liability of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 25 March 2020 to 31 March 2020£72.4mAll contingent liability of assistance provided by the Secretary of State from 25 March 2020 to 31 March 2020£72.4m   


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Companies House targets

Paul Scully: My Right Honourable friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Climate Change and Corporate Responsibility) Lord Callanan has today made the following statement:I have set Companies House the following targets for the year 2020/21: Public TargetsDigital services will be available for a minimum of 99.9% of the time. 97% of companies on the register will have an up to date confirmation statement. We will manage expenditure set out within budgetary limits. We will be in the top quartile of public service organisations for customer satisfaction. We will maintain the proportion of external applications from underrepresented groups. We will withdraw the paper channel for reminders by the end of March 2021.  


This statement has also been made in the House of Lords: 
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Energy Infrastructure Planning Projects

Kwasi Kwarteng: This Statement concerns an application made by Norfolk Boreas Limited for development consent for the installation, operation and maintenance of the proposed Norfolk Boreas Offshore Wind Farm, their related offshore infrastructure off the coast of Norfolk and their related onshore electrical connections within this county.Under section 98(1) of the Planning Act 2008, the Examining Authority must complete its examination of an application by the end of the period of 6 months beginning with the day after the start day of the examination unless the Secretary of State sets a new deadline under section 98(4) of that Act. Where a new deadline is set, the Secretary of State must make a Statement to Parliament to announce it.A request has been made by the Planning Inspectorate to extend the examination period - for five months – for the proposed Norfolk Boreas Offshore Wind Farm development. The reasons given for this request were:due to Government guidelines in relation to Coronavirus (“COVID-19”) several hearings needed to be cancelled, potentially resulting in Interested Parties not being given a fair opportunity to participate in the examination;a number of Interested Parties no longer had the capacity to participate in the examination process as a result of COVID-19 resource prioritisation.Taking these reasons into account and, after careful consideration, the Secretary of State has decided to reset the statutory timescale for the examination as requested. This means that the examination period is now extended to 12 October 2020. As a consequence, the date for receipt of the Examining Authority’s report to BEIS is extended to 12 January 2021 and the statutory deadline for the Secretary of State’s decision is extended to 12 April 2021. However, mindful of the need to avoid unnecessary delays to the development consent process, the Secretary of State requests the Examining Authority to make best efforts to complete the examination process as soon as is reasonably practicable within the extended period. He has requested that a new timetable for the examination should be published which demonstrates the actions to be taken to complete the examination as quickly as possible in this period. He also expects the Examination Authority to provide his Department with regular updates on progress. The decision to set the new deadlines for this application is without prejudice to the decision on whether to grant or refuse development consent.


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Department for Work and Pensions

Health Transformation Programme update

Justin Tomlinson: I would like to update the House on the Department’s plans and progress, under the Health Transformation Programme, to reform assessment services for Employment and Support Allowance, Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Owing to Covid-19, we have had to review our commercial approach and our revised approach is set out below.There is no change to our ambition: the Government remains committed to developing a transformed service that will support those with disabilities and health conditions, through:the creation of a single, integrated health assessment service;a single digital platform developed by DWP;developing this new service on a small scale in a defined part of the country, by creating a Transformation Area, which would be a safe environment to test, adapt and learn from new ideas and processes.These measures will make a real difference to the millions of claimants who use our services.We had previously announced that we would be undertaking a procurement exercise to establish contracts for conducting Work and Capability Assessments (WCA) and PIP health assessments from 1 August 2021. The impact of Covid-19 means it is not possible to launch that procurement at this time.We recognise that it is vital for our claimants to have a safe and stable service. Consequently, my Department intends to explore options to extend the current contracts for up to two years, which will ensure continuity of services when the current contracts end on 31 July 2021. We will continue to review these extensions to ensure we only extend for the time we need to effectively respond to the consequences of Covid-19.The extension period will provide time to fully understand and evaluate the impacts of Covid-19 on these critical services, ahead of future procurements.We recognise that there are positive lessons to be learned from our experience of delivering our services during Covid-19, and the changes we introduced. We are reviewing these and they will inform future delivery, where appropriate. We expect these to be reflected in our wider transformation plans, including the forthcoming Green Paper and subsequent policy decisions regarding the delivery of health assessments.A key objective of the Health Transformation Programme is to improve the trust and transparency in the assessment process. We remain focused on improving the claimant experience and we will continue to work with stakeholders to ensure their insights and experiences are incorporated into the development of the new single, integrated health assessment service and to ensure we are delivering the high quality service claimants rightly expect and deserve.


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Treasury

Employer-provided COVID19 antigen tests: Exemption from Income Tax and National Insurance Contributions

Jesse Norman: The Government is introducing an income tax exemption and National Insurance (NICs) disregard to ensure that Coronavirus antigen testing provided to employees outside the Government’s national testing scheme will not attract tax and NICs liabilities. The Government recognises the importance of Covid-19 testing. Currently, regular tests are available through the Government testing programme to a wide range of employees, including NHS workers. If an individual is tested through the Government testing programme, no tax liability will arise. Under normal rules, the provision of a test by an employer to an employee, either directly or by purchasing tests that are carried out by a third party, would constitute a benefit in kind, and the cost of providing the test would be subject to income tax and Class 1A NICs as a result. However, the Government will introduce an exemption to ensure that no tax liabilities arise. This exemption will ensure that Income Tax and NICs will not be due on employer-provided antigen tests carried out during the current tax year 2020-21.


This statement has also been made in the House of Lords: 
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